Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 10 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:10

أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْوَٰرِثُونَ

“Those are the inheritors”

Saheeh International

Essence

After the list of qualities comes a single verdict: these are the heirs, receiving what no purchase could secure and no rival can contest.

A reflection

Received, not bought

The root of al-wārithūn is described in the lexicons with unusual simplicity. Something that belonged to one people passes to others, by kinship or some other cause. It passes without any contract. The Arabs stretched the word in lovely directions: an illness was said to bequeath weakness, and rain to bequeath the plants their bloom. Whatever is left behind is an inheritance of something.

Picture a woman in her forties who receives a letter from a solicitor. Her late aunt has left her an upright piano. She did not ask for it, never paid for it and cannot yet play it. Nobody else in the family can take it from her. Within a year she is having lessons on Tuesday evenings, learning to use what is already hers.

Why would the Qur'an describe the reward of the believers as inheritance rather than as payment or wages? One classical answer is that inheritance is the strongest of all the ways a thing becomes one's own. A purchase can be disputed, a gift can be resented, wages can be argued over. An inheritance simply passes, by right, without negotiation.

There is humility in the word too. An heir does not earn the estate in the way a worker earns a salary. The qualities listed in 23:2-9 are real and demanding, yet what they lead to is described as something received. The believers do not walk into Paradise waving an invoice. They arrive as heirs, which is to say as family.

This is a fitting end to the list. It began with stillness in prayer, a heart lowered before Allah. It ends with those same people being given what no effort of theirs could have priced.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.